Scaling Tied To S.H.I.E.L.D. Clearance Levels (5/25/17)

Riguez

Posted this somewhere else because I hadn't seen this thread... I am sticking to SCL8 for this "test" just to see how much I get my "behind" kicked, but looking at the rewards difference between SCL7 and SCL8 and the huge difficulty difference I think I'll stick to SCL7 onwards... 400 level enemies is just too much.

drayviper32

KGB said:

With this new scaling system DG3 should consider turning all clearance levels into a form of Heroic.

SCL1: 1* characters only + the 2,3&4* essential
SCL2-3: 1&2* characters only + the 3&4* essential
SCL4-5: 1-3* characters only + the 4* essential
SCL6-7: 1-4* characters only
SCL8: any characters

Now if you want to drop down to SCL7 you can only use your 4* and below so those champed 5* won't be blowing through nodes that are capped at 270.

It also means if you don't have good boosted 4* characters or want to take a break from high level PvE on an event you can drop to SCL5 or so and just take your 2&3* character teams out again for nostalgia reasons.

KGB

Not a fan of this idea. No good!

StarScream

I have three nodes that start out at 23 and stay there for all clears. Then I get into the rest of the nodes that start out at 165. Really? Either too easy or extreme? 

Add another in the long line of mess ups for these developers. 

Kozza123

This is tinykitty. Why didn't they tell us and put the message on the app before the event. I have already enter this event yesterday and now got the message today and noticed this is happening and don't know I can play this. Really MPQ. And who do you think at level CL 8 have the roster to do these fights at that level 5/6 times. Also one minute you trying to make the game so people play less then you make it so you have to do fight at least 5 times so now we are playing more and now your making it ridiculous to play. Even if we can do these fight the roster will take a battering not have the health to heal them to do the required time so leveling and prises will be less. Or we have to do level a lot lower than we are capable now and that's tinykitty.  I love this game but my opinion is really starting to change. 

Daiches

I joined 2.8 and did the entire clear in 32 minutes. My scaling capped out at 323 for the hardest node. 100 levels at least below my previous hardest node. Actually may be just as easy as first clear before.

However.. 32 minutes was only the 7th clear time. First places did it in 25/26 minutes.

Yeah, kinda ready for Scl9 and 10 now. This was made too easy.

Bowgentle

Daiches said:

I joined 2.8 and did the entire clear in 32 minutes. My scaling capped out at 323 for the hardest node. 100 levels at least below my previous hardest node. Actually may be just as easy as first clear before.

However.. 32 minutes was only the 7th clear time. First places did it in 25/26 minutes.

Yeah, kinda ready for Scl9 and 10 now. This was made too easy.

Don't worry, they'll realize that scaling isn't at 400 as advertised when they get back from their break and hotfix it within an hour.

Arix90

Bowgentle said:

Daiches said:

I joined 2.8 and did the entire clear in 32 minutes. My scaling capped out at 323 for the hardest node. 100 levels at least below my previous hardest node. Actually may be just as easy as first clear before.

However.. 32 minutes was only the 7th clear time. First places did it in 25/26 minutes.

Yeah, kinda ready for Scl9 and 10 now. This was made too easy.

Don't worry, they'll realize that scaling isn't at 400 as advertised when they get back from their break and hotfix it within an hour.

Its not broken its random each node is a random level up to 400 starting RNG just decided to go easy

Bowgentle

Arix90 said:

Bowgentle said:

Daiches said:

I joined 2.8 and did the entire clear in 32 minutes. My scaling capped out at 323 for the hardest node. 100 levels at least below my previous hardest node. Actually may be just as easy as first clear before.

However.. 32 minutes was only the 7th clear time. First places did it in 25/26 minutes.

Yeah, kinda ready for Scl9 and 10 now. This was made too easy.

Don't worry, they'll realize that scaling isn't at 400 as advertised when they get back from their break and hotfix it within an hour.

Its not broken its random each node is a random level up to 400 starting RNG just decided to go easy

It's not random when every 5* player caps out at exactly 323.

SpringSoldier

I'm glad I joined the forums, because I got the message about the difficulty of SCL8 only AFTER I joined it. I'm glad I picked it though. I will definitely test my limits. Too bad it's not during the weekend, so I would've had more time to grind.

zulux21

so I am enjoying the easy nodes not getting higher level, make it so easy to get some resources without paying attention.

either way I am fine with how things are in this test. just need to balance out 8 more so people want to play it over 7.

supergarv

Hey,

(Reposted here because seperate discussion was closed but I'd like feedback)

I am a day 781 player, my roster is firmly in 4* land (23 champed; no 5* with more than 4/5 covers), shield rank 94. I usually play SCL7 or SCL8, and got around level ~320 goons in the hardest node and usually get at least T50.

I picked SCL6 for this playtest, because the time investment even for 4/6 clears was getting too much for me, and I embrace the possibility to make the game easier for me.

The Good: With SCL6, the hardest node for me is now at level 212. It only took me around 26 minutes for my 4/6 clear run instead of usually 40-50 minutes.

The Bad: Of course the prog rewards in SCL6 do not include a 4* reward. I joined the S1 bracket at 890 players and after my run I was at #5. So I guess everyone and their mom is in SCL7 actually right now. I can accept the prog reward impact, but really think that SCL9 needs to happen for this thing to work; the SCL8 scaling is just ridiculously high in terms of time investment/reward.

The Ugly: What became very apparent in the PVE grind to me this time is that out of the 26 minutes I spent around 15 minutes (!) inside the UI and pushing buttons. Example for a match:

> "Next"
> "Claim" dropped node reward
> "Next"
> Accept reward
> "Claim"
> Accept reward for progression
> "Next" to see the next progression reward
> Select next/same node
> "Replay"
> "Fight" (roster selection)
> "Fight"

That's 11 hasty button presses to just get to the next round. Not even speaking of the slow attack tiles showing me their moving numbers, seeing banners, power animations, Daken's passive healing (...) and moonstones power animation. 

We really really need a way to make this whole process more fluid to not die in agony, when we actually want to do a PVE quickly.  I would even refrain from accepting placement rewards, if I could get a "No animations" toggle.

What's your experience? I'm excited to hear how relieving this must be for 5* players to actually get into PVE again?

Addendum: I took a dive and made the final 2 clears to reach 6/6, and those took me about 15 Minutes. So a total PVE greencheck run in about 45 minutes compared to around 1,25 hours is a welcome change to my quality of life :-D

I really hope this is the final straw to topple off the placement rewards in PVE. It would make things much more relaxed, and is more healthy in the long run. I'd opt for 2-3 special events (like former heroics?) in a month where placement counts, this would be something to look forward to then. And nobody gets mad at 5* rosters.

Arix90

Bowgentle said:

Arix90 said:

Bowgentle said:

Daiches said:

I joined 2.8 and did the entire clear in 32 minutes. My scaling capped out at 323 for the hardest node. 100 levels at least below my previous hardest node. Actually may be just as easy as first clear before.

However.. 32 minutes was only the 7th clear time. First places did it in 25/26 minutes.

Yeah, kinda ready for Scl9 and 10 now. This was made too easy.

Don't worry, they'll realize that scaling isn't at 400 as advertised when they get back from their break and hotfix it within an hour.

Its not broken its random each node is a random level up to 400 starting RNG just decided to go easy

It's not random when every 5* player caps out at exactly 323.

Its random for each event but same random number applies to everyone

Bowgentle

Arix90 said:

Bowgentle said:

Arix90 said:

Bowgentle said:

Daiches said:

I joined 2.8 and did the entire clear in 32 minutes. My scaling capped out at 323 for the hardest node. 100 levels at least below my previous hardest node. Actually may be just as easy as first clear before.

However.. 32 minutes was only the 7th clear time. First places did it in 25/26 minutes.

Yeah, kinda ready for Scl9 and 10 now. This was made too easy.

Don't worry, they'll realize that scaling isn't at 400 as advertised when they get back from their break and hotfix it within an hour.

Its not broken its random each node is a random level up to 400 starting RNG just decided to go easy

It's not random when every 5* player caps out at exactly 323.

Its random for each event but same random number applies to everyone

That actually sounds convoluted enough for Demiurge to be true.
Well, let's see what the official word will be.

Wumpushunter

Let the sniping of sl6 commence!

zodiac339

I hope that Demiurge will change this system from static level ranges of enemies in the SCL to a percentage level reduction based on your roster scaling. For instance, SCL8 equals 100% of your roster scaling (until SCL 9/10 are made), while each lower level reduces the levels of enemies by a percentage of their maximum.
Static scaling removes the great advantage of PVE over PVP, in that PVE players have a way to compete fairly based on skill and effort rather than just having overwhelmingly powerful characters. Let PVP be the place whales are in the top 1%. Let PVE be the place where players who are legitimately good at playing have a chance at the top 1%.
So, looking at my personal scaling, the hardest mission typically caps out at 325/326. To maintain the fair scaling of PVE while still tying difficulty to SCL, each SCL under 8 could have levels reduced by about 7%. So I would be looking at
SCL8, enemies cap at 326
SCL7, enemy cap 303
SCL6, 280
SCL5,  257
SCL4, 234
SCL3, 208
SCL2, 185
SCL1, 163 (50% of the maximum levels in SCL8)

The thing for devs to remember about the competion aspect? The less effort whales have to put into events to get rewards, the less likely they'll buy from vaults and token shops to get the rewards instead. If they put in 20-30 minutes and get top ten rewards, then buying rewards becomes unnecessary.

Bowgentle

zodiac339 said:

I hope that Demiurge will change this system from static level ranges of enemies in the SCL to a percentage level reduction based on your roster scaling. For instance, SCL8 equals 100% of your roster scaling (until SCL 9/10 are made), while each lower level reduces the levels of enemies by a percentage of their maximum.
Static scaling removes the great advantage of PVE over PVP, in that PVE players have a way to compete fairly based on skill and effort rather than just having overwhelmingly powerful characters. Let PVP be the place whales are in the top 1%. Let PVE be the place where players who are legitimately good at playing have a chance at the top 1%.
So, looking at my personal scaling, the hardest mission typically caps out at 325/326. To maintain the fair scaling of PVE while still tying difficulty to SCL, each SCL under 8 could have levels reduced by about 7%. So I would be looking at
SCL8, enemies cap at 326
SCL7, enemy cap 303
SCL6, 280
SCL5,  257
SCL4, 234
SCL3, 208
SCL2, 185
SCL1, 163 (50% of the maximum levels in SCL8)

The thing for devs to remember about the competion aspect? The less effort whales have to put into events to get rewards, the less likely they'll buy from vaults and token shops to get the rewards instead. If they put in 20-30 minutes and get top ten rewards, then buying rewards becomes unnecessary.

PVE never scaled fairly for high level rosters, which is exactly what this test is trying to correct.
And tons of people with high level rosters know exactly how to play PVE - which is what you see in CL8 now that we're all on even ground with enemy levels.

roboto0007

Hate this change already.  Why does every "improvement" have to *make progression suffer*

**Removed inappropriate phrasing - Ducky

DeNappa

I usually play SCL8 (beginning 4* player with 5 4*s champed), for the 4* progression cover and best CP/HP progression rewards. For this test, I might drop to SCL4 or 5.

• I never play for placement anyway. I usually rank top300, top200 max. (there are a few exceptional outliers in t50, but that's highly unusual)
  
• The 4* progression cover is Gwenpool green. I have her at 9 covers, but 5 in green already so I can't use that cover. ( )
  
• The recent reward structure change redistributed CP, with most of it pushed to max progression ( )
  

Because the 4* cover is just a 1000ISO reward for me in this event, that means the main prize for me to take home here is CP (always in high demand)

So I have a choice:

1. subject myself to even higher levels than usual and spend time trying to fight through SCL8 levels.
   Err. well, no thank you. I doubt I'd be able to invest that much time and effort into reaching max progression, so any attempt will probably end at the 8CP point.
   
2. take the easy way out and play in at level 4 (5+15cp progression points) or 5 (8+17CP progression points)
   Hmmkay, the rewards are lower, but I can probably breeze through with some boosted heroes without too much resistance.

adamdivine

I do not understand the reasoning for wanting the scaling to increase, esp for high level rosters. Under this system, no longer will 5* rosters see underlevelled or softcap rosters being able to compete in cl8 (which is the way it should be). It will still be a race (but it was before), but the race is now a sprint instead of a marathon. I understand the frustration of some lower level rosters getting scaled out of cl8, but unless you are not even in champed 3* land, cl7 is perfectly doable. Maybe you will not get as high of placement, but progression should be fine. If you are not in 3* champed land or higher, then those upper clearance levels should have never been open to you in the first place and that is the fault of the developers and where the blame should go. But this change will only make the game better and hopefully clear a pathway for them to open cl9 and cl10

Mekuh

And it's reasons like this why I've decided to quit this game. The final straw for me was the fact that you put high CP and HP to the far back of progression goals. Now this? And you decided to test it out on this PVE event.

No thanks.